Promotion for NYPD captain who waved off date rape
AN NYPD captain who once dismissed date rape as not as serious as “true stranger rapes” will be promoted Tuesday, the Daily News has learned.
Capt. Peter Rose, commanding officer of the 94th Precinct in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, will be named a deputy inspector, the department confirmed Monday.
“Capt. Peter Rose is being recognized for his accomplishments as an executive and was selected for a promotion from captain to deputy inspector,” Deputy Chief Timothy Trainor, an NYPD spokesman, said.
He did not address the firestorm that followed Rose’s remarks at a community meeting in January.
Addressing an uptick of reported rapes in his precinct, Rose drew a distinction between sexual attacks from a stranger versus someone the victim knew. “Some of them were Tinder, some of them were hookup sites, some of them were actually coworkers. It’s not a trend that we’re too worried about because out of 13, only two were true stranger rapes,” Rose (photo) said, according to DNAinfo, which first reported on the meeting.
Rose’s remarks drew criticism from women’s groups and City Hall, and spurred a rebuke by NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill in a Jan. 9 Daily News OpEd piece.
He later apologized for his comments — but Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women’s New York chapter, said that wasn’t enough.
“This promotion is an affront to women and confirms what women know too well, that the NYPD doesn’t take rape seriously enough,” Ossorio said. “Women should take to the streets.”
Mayor de Blasio, whose press secretary blasted Rose in January, did not comment on the promotion. “The mayor doesn’t get involved in the promotion process and certainly wasn’t involved in this one,” spokesman Austin Finan said Monday.
Roy Richter, head of the Captains Endowment Association, called the promotion “well-deserved and long overdue” Monday.
“The commander’s past comments did not reflect how serious he or the department responds to all sex crimes,” Richter said.
Rose did not return messages seeking comment. A MANaccused of beating and strangling a Queens jogger watched cartoons in a police stationhouse all night before finally confessing to the killing, according to court testimony Monday.
Chanel Lewis, 21, initially refused to speak with detectives after his Feb. 4 arrest and asked to watch TV, a detective said during a pretrial hearing in Queens Supreme Court.
Cops and prosecutors say Lewis killed Karina Vetrano, 30, on Aug. 2, 2016, on a jogging path in Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach.
“He wanted to see cartoons, so we put on cartoons for him through the night. He said he couldn’t sleep,” Detective Barry Brown of Queens South Homicide said in court.
Early on Feb. 5, Lewis broke his silence.
“He called me,” Brown recalled. “I asked him, ‘You gotta go to the bathroom?’ He said, ‘No, can I speak to the family members?’
“I said, ‘No, what are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Can I talk to the family? I want to change my life. I’m sorry for what I did. I lost it,’ ” Brown recounted.
“I said, ‘Hold on, you want to talk about this now?’ I was shocked,” Brown testified. He said Lewis said he did. “I said, ‘Hold on . . . we have to go back into the room. I gotta read you your rights.’ He said OK.”
Vetrano’s family filled the courtroom during testimony. The slain woman’s mother, Cathy Vetrano, clutched a gold crucifix and stared angrily at Lewis, who glanced at her from time to time. Lewis’ mother, Veta Lewis (below), and another relative sat on the other side of the courtroom and showed no outward emotion. Brown took the stand as part of the pretrial testimony phase of the case. Assistant District Attorney Brad Leventhal called three witnesses, including Brown, who had interviewed Lewis during his confession in February. Prosecutors played the videotaped confession during which Lewis said he attacked Vetrano, hitting her “about five times with both hands” until she fell to the ground face up in a pool of water. “I got scared and then threw her in the bushes,” Lewis said in the video. “Then I went home.”
Lewis denied raping Vetrano and claimed that her clothes fell off in the fight.Brown testified he apprehended Lewis on Feb. 4, at his East New York, Brooklyn, home and told him that police needed a DNA sample.
“I told Mr. Lewis that we have to go back to the 75th Precinct to take another sample of DNA,” Brown said. “He said, ‘No, can we do it another day?’ I said we had to do it today. He hesitated, then agreed: ‘OK, OK, I’ll come.’ ”
Brown testified the line about the DNA sample was a lie meant to coax Lewis into the police car so the detective could bring him in and arrest him.
During Brown’s cross examination, defense attorney Robert Moeller said the lack of video outside the interview room raised doubts about Lewis changing his mind about cooperating and coming back hours later with a full confession.